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I got an e-mail this morning from a friend who will be visiting Japan on a mini-sabbatical from work. This guy is interesting in that he did a particular style of Aikido for about six months and then circumstance was such that he had no one to practice with. So what did this then 7th Kyu guy do. He grabbed some friends and just started to practice. He's a half decent Nidan today.

There is absolutely no reason for anyone to practice alone and in fact - I would say it is impossible.

I got an e-mail this morning from a friend who will be visiting Japan on a mini-sabbatical from work. This guy is interesting in that he did a particular style of Aikido for about six months and then circumstance was such that he had no one to practice with. So what did this then 7th Kyu guy do. He grabbed some friends and just started to practice. He's a half decent Nidan today.

There is absolutely no reason for anyone to practice alone and in fact - I would say it is impossible.

Well its not impossible. I usually do alot of "shadow boxing" (cant remember the japanese term), the bad thing is that you wont get out as much as you would with a partner.

But its good training the techniques on your own, as a beginner I find it easier to "program" my mind with the moves when I'm on my own than with a partner, surrounded by 20 other traineÚs. Thats just me though

But its good training the techniques on your own, as a beginner I find it easier to "program" my mind with the moves when I'm on my own than with a partner, surrounded by 20 other traineÚs. Thats just me though

I'm a big fan of what I call ghosting a technique but the frame of reference is always practice with real live kicking people.

I practice on my own quite a bit but what the original poster was asking seemed to be more along the lines of exclusively by himself. I don't know anything about the poster but I will say that no matter how many videos he watches or books he reads he will not do Aikido until he gets on a mat.

I'm a big fan of what I call ghosting a technique but the frame of reference is always practice with real live kicking people.

I practice on my own quite a bit but what the original poster was asking seemed to be more along the lines of exclusively by himself. I don't know anything about the poster but I will say that no matter how many videos he watches or books he reads he will not do Aikido until he gets on a mat.

I'm a big fan of what I call ghosting a technique but the frame of reference is always practice with real live kicking people.

I practice on my own quite a bit but what the original poster was asking seemed to be more along the lines of exclusively by himself. I don't know anything about the poster but I will say that no matter how many videos he watches are books he reads he will not do Aikido until he gets on a mat.

Yup, only with real people can you do real aikido. There are two types of aikido when you deal with people...

1) Dealing with fellow aikidoka. This is where proper impartation of aikido knowledge follows. You learn syallabatic aikido as in textbook style aikido.

2) Dealing with non-aikido practitioner. This is where improvisation, creativity and thinking outside the box mentality is most useful. Even a normal physique women can and will resist standard aikido techniques.

More on point no. 2:
I find that when I play/kid around with my household people who doesn't do aikido, it is a challenge bšoz when in dojo, we are program to move in a fixed manner as per syllabus. E.g, tori and uke's mind are somehow communicated. When doing aikido with non-practitioner who are not adversary... Do standard technique and they will resist because their body just do not know what to do. Too hard and you are muscling the technique which is not very aiki.

Therefore it is always a challenge to do it just right. This is when your intimate knowledge of priniples and feelings comes in handy; NOT technique memorization .

NB: From personal experience... Using standard technique, non-practitioner escape the technique (laughs at silliness of aikido tech). Second time with improvisation... same recipient will stay away from me for a long time. Sigh. Can't have best of everything.

Tomiki-sensei was in jail in China for three years towards the end of WWII. He developed a lot of his system there having not much else to do. A lot of his base practices that we still do at the start of the class come from the time when he had a small cell and no one else to practice with. Sure. he was 8th dan at the time so maybe that's a little bit different </understatement>

Khaled, as you're a beginner I'd suggest leaving solo practice alone for a while otherwise you may start teaching yourself bad habits. Ask your instructor for some specific solo-drills (e.g. movements, etc) that they would like you to do, check you've got them correct first in the dojo then go it alone.

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A lot of his base practices that we still do at the start of the class come from the time when he had a small cell and no one else to practice with

this simple sentence captures the spirit of the shodothug so well to my mind... incidentally Yann, it dawned on me that shodothug competition could be classed as NHB - no hakamas bared (couldn't resist)

Please, don't do that! I nearly chocked on my tea. BTW, I've seen shodokan folks do competition with hakama, just not randori.

As for stand alone practice: what are you really trying to do? Learn Aikido faster?... there's no short cuts. Just train with an open mind and things will come to you. As a beginner you may get into bad habits that are really hard to break later on. Just a thought.

Get yourself a bokken and practice. Keep the number of cuts small to begin with - say 10 in the morning and 10 in the evening, that way you don't train in the bad habits so much. As your cuts get better increase their number. The errors that creep into your cuts should get picked up and worked on in class.

If your dojo does weapons work than bokken swinging is a good answer.
Every now and then do a waza with an imaginary partner - I don't think you need to set aside time for this.
Play another sport rather than watch TV - fitness not to mention speed and dexterity. Squash is great, judo is better.

Khaled, I'm with Peter on this - other than weapon work I'd really just suggest other forms of exercise, ideally both aerobic (for general health) and anaerobic (more needed for randori and sparring).

how can I practice alone? difficult
Is imagination enough? - can be, but the random element of a partner is missing so you can be misled on what actually works
should I practice daily?
and how many hours should I spend practicing? - to both I'd suggest do as much as you find interesting to do, if it's becoming a chore, leave off, stick with dojo practice and supplement with some other activity instead. You've got loads of time to learn aikido, so just enjoy the learning process and train as you see fit.

Footwork/evasion (thousands of Tenkans!), pretend to do the techniques you were taught in your last class, loads of Jo and Bokken, Torifune, stretching.

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Is imagination enough?

Not really, best to ask your instructors advise on specific physical exercises. If you mean meditation, again ask advise from your instructor as you need to know what you are doing to get good benefit.

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should I practise daily?

No. You will over do it and burn yourself out. I'd suggest doing one day training, one day resting. If you need more, maybe 2 days training and then 1 day resting. Don't over do it, this is a common mistake.